Bon Secours maternity to be eliminated

PORT JERVIS — Bon Secours Community Hospital got approval Friday from state regulators to decertify its obstetrical services and eliminate its four maternity beds.

James Nani

PORT JERVIS — Bon Secours Community Hospital got approval Friday from state regulators to decertify its obstetrical services and eliminate its four maternity beds.

But the approval from the New York State Department of Health came with several caveats.

Bon Secours will need to provide an "acceptable closure plan" and several other commitments, the state approval says.

Specifically, the state is requiring that any time a woman comes to the hospital and delivery is imminent, Bon Secours will arrange and pay for the cost of transporting that patient by ambulance to Orange Regional Medical Center in the Town of Wallkill.

That would apply only if the woman can be safely transported and if the transportation isn't covered by the patient's insurance.

Bon Secours also will be required to cover transportation costs for the baby and mother back to their home and the cost for taxi services for immediate family members wanting to visit the patient for up to three round-trip visits.

The transportation costs would be covered for two years.

The approval is also contingent on working with the Middletown Community Health Center, located on Hammond Street.

The Health Center contracts with Bon Secours to provide three full-time obstetrics doctors, though one of those doctors left in November.

Bon Secours will have to provide two $25,000 annual grants to the Health Center to hand out "transport vouchers" to obstetrics patients and their families who reside in Bon Secours' service area, so that they can travel to and from ORMC.

Bon Secours would also be required to provide obstetrics training and continuing education to Emergency Department staff, and have a designated space in the Emergency Department for births when conditions will not allow a pregnant woman to be transferred to another facility.

Bon Secours will have to expand its collaboration with the Health Center to provide outreach and education services, meeting and training space, screenings and publicity regarding the need for prenatal care.

The approval comes more than a year after the hospital asked the state to allow it to close the maternity unit.

Community members have opposed the plan, saying the shutdown affects low-income residents of Port Jervis who can't afford to get to the two nearest hospitals in Warwick and the Town of Wallkill.

Frederick Kelly, board chairman for Bon Secours Charity Health System, said the hospital had been unable to recruit and keep well-qualified obstetricians.

In July, the Health Department said it was leaning toward denying the closure, though talks continued.